Future Meat Technologies, or Future Meat for short, is a biotechnology firm which produces
cultured meat
Cultured meat (also known by other names) is meat produced by culturing animal cells ''in vitro''. It is a form of cellular agriculture.
Cultured meat is produced using tissue engineering techniques pioneered in regenerative medicine. Jason M ...
from
chicken
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domestication, domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey junglefowl, grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster ...
cells and is working on cultured
lamb
Lamb or The Lamb may refer to:
* A young sheep
* Lamb and mutton, the meat of sheep
Arts and media Film, television, and theatre
* ''The Lamb'' (1915 film), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in his screen debut
* ''The Lamb'' (1918 ...
kebab
Kebab (, ; ar, كباب, link=no, Latn, ar, kabāb, ; tr, kebap, link=no, ) or kabob (North American) is a type of cooked meat dish (food), dish that originates from Middle Eastern cuisine, cuisines of the Middle East. Many variants of the ...
s and
beef
Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus'').
In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quant ...
burgers. Based in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, its main office is located in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, while its primary production facility is operating in
Rehovot
Rehovot ( he, רְחוֹבוֹת ''Rəḥōvōt'', ar, رحوڤوت ''Reḥūfūt'') is a city in the Central District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of .
Etymology
Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu moveme ...
.
Future Meat Technologies mainly seeks to supply hardware and cell lines to manufacturers of cultured meat rather than directly selling food products to consumers.
In November 2022, Future Meat Technologies rebranded t
Believer Meats
History
Future Meat Technologies was founded in 2018 by
Yaakov Nahmias
Yaakov "Koby" Nahmias is an Israeli biomedical engineer and entrepreneur. Nahmias is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an affiliated member of the NIH-funded BioMEMS Resource Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Nahmia ...
, a biomedical engineering professor of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He became Future Meat's chief scientific officer.
The company presented its cultured meat prototype to the public in 2019. In October 2019, it raised $14 million to build its pilot plant, and estimated that it could bring its products to the market in 2022.
To achieve this, Future Meat stated in February 2020 that it sought to bring down the price of producing cultured meat to $10 per pound by 2022.
In January 2020, ''
Quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...
'' found around 30 cultured meat startups, and that
Memphis Meats,
Just Inc. and Future Meat Technologies were the most advanced because they were building pilot plants.
In June 2021, the construction of Future Meat's pilot plant in Rehovot was completed, and it entered into service.
As of November 2021, the facility was capable of producing 500 kilograms of cultured meat per day, or 182,625 kilograms a year.
That year it raised a Series B investment round of US$347M.
Technology
The company extracts cells from live animals. It cultures those cells in
stainless steel fermenters, where they reproduce and develop into edible tissues. The company claims that reproduction rates are 10x greater than others, while generating 20% of their
greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), met ...
emissions. Compared to animal husbandry, it uses 1% of the land and 4% of the water. In 2021, it reduced the cost of a cultured chicken breast from US$7.50 to $1.70.
References
External links
*
{{Cultured meat startups
Biotechnology companies of Israel
Cellular agriculture
Food and drink companies of Israel